Extras (Uglies, #4) in Crazy Challenge Connection

Feb 26, 2011 A. S. rated it liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. In the final book of Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series, Extras, the reader gets to know the world three years after Tally Youngblood saved it through the eyes of Aya Fuse. I know what you're thinking--why bother reading a book in a series that doesn't even feature the main protagonist in the other three books? Well, to be frank, I think this book is as good as Uglies (the best book of the trilogy), and because of the character switch, I understand this book as not part of the trilogy, but based o In the final book of Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series, Extras, the reader gets to know the world three years after Tally Youngblood saved it through the eyes of Aya Fuse. I know what you're thinking--why bother reading a book in a series that doesn't even feature the main protagonist in the other three books? Well, to be frank, I think this book is as good as Uglies (the best book of the trilogy), and because of the character switch, I understand this book as not part of the trilogy, but based on the same world.

I'll be frank here: Westerfeld has some cool ideas, but his writing style is really bad. He regurgitates nearly all of the same YA conventions that I hate in all of his books: ridiculous names, stupid love triangles, obnoxious made-up slang in dialogue that just doesn't sound natural. With the exception of the love triangle, all of those conventions appear in Extras as well. I will get to each of those complaints in time.

Aya Fuse is a fifteen year old Japanese girl who's just trying to find her clique in the new free society since the days of the mind rain (when Tally saved the world in Specials). In Aya's city, people place importance on "face rank," which is basically a tally (no pun intended) of the blog hits/youtube hits that you get. See, in Aya's world, the economy works by having people earn merits or high face ranks to get stuff out of the smart matter walls (the magic closet from Pretties). Merits are awarded for good behavior (babysitting, doing well in school, volunteering for icky jobs) and people with jobs that are extremely important for city function (sanitation workers, teachers, doctors, etc.). Since the best jobs are reserved for crumblies and middle aged people, young people strive for high face rank. To get high face ranks, people do anything from the vapid (choose my next outfit videos--reminds me of those makeup "gurus" on youtube) to the interesting (make videos of yourself playing professional sports). Aya is disappointed because her face rank is low--about 500k in a city of a million, making her an "extra" or irrelevant person. Her brother Hiro has a much higher face rank and rather irritatingly critiques Aya's output as a "kicker" like himself (kickers are basically trend-spotting reporters).

Aya finally finds a story she thinks will really up her face rank: tracking a girl gang of risk-taking adventurers called the Sly Girls who try to do their pranks in anonymity. Aya gets invited to join the Sly Girls on their mag-lev train roof riding, provided she doesn't bring Moggle, her hovercam, to record anything to kick the story. To be sure of this, the girls drop Moggle in an underground pool. Aya reluctantly agrees, but in her heart knows she'll double-cross them and expose their adventures after she recovers Moggle.

But the Sly Girls and Aya stumble onto something really crazy on their mag-lev ride: a metal tube in a mountain, built by weird-looking creatures, that Aya thinks may be a launchpad for debris to ruin the city. The Sly Girls agree that this is important enough for Aya to kick, but they basically tell her to protect their identities as much as she can. With the help of her brother, her brother's tech-savvy friend Ren Machino, and the cute boy Frizz Mizuno, Aya presents her story to the city, but in the process makes herself and her buddies a target.

That's when Tally and her friends come back. Tally's return honestly, was kind of pointless. Because the story is told through Aya's eyes, Tally appears really different to the reader: she's kind of mean and stupid. Like I said earlier, this book should be considered separate from the rest of the series; Westerfeld could have written this without Tally at all.

One thing I liked about the book was it finally gave me an answer to the question I had in the earlier books: what did Pretties of other races and nationalities look like? Westerfeld mentions briefly that the various Pretty Committees allowed for some regional variation, but implies that white-washing still occurred (some of the girls had brown hair, which isn't common in Japanese people). If you didn't pay attention early on or didn't know what Japanese names were like, it might shock the reader that there was a language barrier between Tally and the rest of the characters. This brings me to my YA conventions complaint about names. What the actual hell are these names? He sticks a random English word with a Japanese sounding name or word, but there's no rhyme or reason for the new naming conventions. Take for instance:

Aya Fuse: Japanese given name, random English word surname
Yoshio Banana: see above
Frizz Mizuno: random English word given name, Japanese-esque surname (this one is especially annoying b/c it's a surname from a Sailor Moon character, but it isn't an actual Japanese surname, it's supposed to just be a pun)
Ren Machino: Japanese given name, Japanese-esque surname

See, there's no pattern! And that's the weirdest thing of all, since naming is an important tradition in Japan.

What I really liked in the book were the characters. I enjoyed reading about nearly all of them: Aya was an insecure but smart and resourceful teen, Ren was a typical teenage gamer-boy, Hiro the bossy but well-meaning older brother, the cute and crazy Frizz, and the exciting Sly Girls. In the Uglies trilogy, I liked a few characters (Shane in the beginning only, Zane, and Peris) but for the large part, I didn't really like most of the characters, and Tally and Shane became seriously annoying towards the end, so Extras was a big improvement. However, I wish that we got to see more of the Sly Girls. It seems like the Sly Girls were a plot device for Aya to get to the tube'o'destruction. The ending was kind of meh, because Aya "learns her lesson" yet still has a huge face rank. I wanted a more satisfying ending where Aya understands that the problem with high face rank isn't that it allows you to be the target of a lot of danger and cameras, but that in order to function in society, some people need privacy and anonymity, and that turning off her feed could give her time to reflect and do/find cool stuff. I wished she'd have gone riding with the Sly Girls instead of meeting them at a party.

Overall, I liked this book in comparison to the rest of the series, but it's a "light" read rather than serious YA literature. ...more

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Feb 14, 2013 Tallyho rated it liked it

Not my favorite of the series. I didn't like the focus switch from Tally's POV to a newly introduced character. I wouldn't have minded a book from another POV, but I wished it was a character I was more familiar with.

However, it was a fun story, and familiar/much loved setting. ...more

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Jan 01, 2010 Susan rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, fiction, series, young-adult, dystopia

I really enjoyed this. It helped that someone had warned me not to expect it to be a continuation of Tally's story from Uglies, Pretties, and Specials. I really like Aya, the new protagonist. I don't think it had as much to say as the 4 prior books -- it was just a fun read. ...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Rachel N. rated it liked it

It is three years since the end of Specials and a lot of changes have taken place since the mind rain. Aya fuse lives in a town in Japan where your status in society depends on your face rank, how popular you are. Aya wants to find a big story to kick in order to get famous. The end of the book didn't make a lot of sense but still an entertaining story. ...more

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Jul 10, 2008 TheReadingKnitter/ Kasey rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2009, favorites

This was by far my favorite book of the whole series. The other books usually took me about two or three days to really get into them but as soon as I started reading this one I was into it. I loved Aya and Frizz.

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